Psychologist, lecturer, researcher

Guess what? New statistics show yet another rise in STIs for people aged 45 and older

Earlier this week Public Health England released their annual data on sexually transmitted infections. The report presents the most recently collected figures on sexually transmitted infections (STIs), those diagnosed during 2013, and sits them side-by-side with the figures from previous years, going back in this instance to 2009. This enable easy comparison of data and again it is clear to see that there has been an increase in diagnoses of chlamydia, gonorrhoea, warts and herpes for the age groups 45-64 and 65+.

The highest increases observed over this period were for chlamydia in women aged 45-64 years (up by 159%) and aged 65+ (430% increase). For men, chlamydia diagnoses rose most for those aged 65+ (188% increase).

Gonorrhoea increased for women aged 65+ by 125%, for men aged 65+ 109% and men aged 45-64 by 126%.

Women in the 65+ age groups also saw an increase in diagnoses of herpes (up 108%) and syphilis (up a staggering 500%).